It's not gonna happen, but still!

So yesterday at Paula's wedding reception (!) wearing my cute new dress (!!) I was regaling my friends with the one-sentence story of OMG-I-came-this-close-to-buying-tickets-to-Morocco-today-but-they're-£100-and-I-just-don't-know. And Diogo turns to me and was like, Why? Buy a cheap flight to Portugal and we'll drive down.

What?

Yes. Drive down to Morocco. From Portugal. Like you do.

Now, I'm pretty sure he was a little drunk (it being a wedding reception and all). And I'm also pretty sure that being in a car with Diogo for hours and days on end could just as easily be a receipe for complete disaster as it could be totally fun. But can we just take a moment to think about HOW COOL IT WOULD BE to take a ROAD TRIP down the coast of Portugal, though Spain, over the strait of Gibraltar, and into Morocco!? Cuz, for serious, that would just be UN.BE.LIEV.A.BLE.

The Travel Bug Strikes Again

My visa expires at the end of Sept, and so I'm looking into plane tickets. Not home (though I need to book those sooner rather than later), because I'm not planning on coming back to the States much earlier than mid-November, though as always everything is subject to change. No, I'd like to spend some time in Europe, either with friends in their home towns (Ana Mirtha in Madrid, Maria in San Sebastian [Basque Country], Cecile in France, Diogo in Porto, Katia in Malta), or just in places that I want to go to that I'm closer to now than I will be in the States. Digging around on Ryanair and Easyjet (but mostly Ryanair), here's what I've found:

I can fly round trip to Marrakesh, Morocco for just over £100.
I can fly to Malta for £85.
I can go to Portugal for £50.
Madrid is about the same.
Croatia is £35.

I have to admit that the Morocco fare, though by far the most expensive, is REALLY REALLY tempting. I would fly out on the 28th Sept, which is the day my lease expires and 2 days before my visa's up, stay just shy of a week, and be back in time for my birthday in London. And then go to Portugal or Spain or France. Or all three. Eurail! Eurail! Eurail!

Uh-oh.

V for Vacation

It's only two days in, but I don't mind working full-time. It gives me the evenings to play - drinks on the steps of Town Hall with Cecile and Diogo on Saturday, Wall-E with Carrie on Sunday (after the Flower Market and Hackney Farm and Peachy Pimms with Erin and Jones), Hackney Downs and then a BBQ and Persefoni-send-off last night, and tonight? V for Vendetta at the IMAX. Summer rocks.

Dear Self: (or, Things I know)

Give it time. Give yourself the time and space to be who you know you are and whom you need to be. Embrace yourself first, others after. Only embrace those who will accept it in a way you can accept. Don’t be afraid. Trust the woman you’ve become. Know you’re enough.

Note:

I graduate tomorrow.

Staying strong

I'm sick. Like up-half-the-night-with-a-racking-cough, python-swallowed-my-head-congestion kind of sick. Gross. And I'm about to head off to six straight hours of rehearsal.

Wish me luck. As long as I make it through the next two and a half days I'll be ok.

What to write?

It's been a very full, very rewarding, VERY exhausting week. Fifteen hour day after fifteen hour day since Sunday, each evening a new project to perform, a new world to present. It's a wonderful exhaustion, this theatre-induced fatigue, but it takes its toll: I woke up this morning with a sore throat, and am valiantly battling the threat of illness. And there's still a week to go.

My piece went really well. I'm so proud of my cast and appreciative of all their hard work. I'm so agog at the fact that I can build theatre, that I can see a vision through to some form of completion. Nearly all of the constructive criticism I was given by the teachers was stuff I already knew, and that's a great thing. Thinking back to the beginning of this programme, when half the time the feedback they gave me was in a language I neither spoke nor understood, this is certainly an accomplishment.

And last night, we performed Erin's piece, and brought much of the audience to tears. She is such a fine director, a fine artist and human, with such a lovely touch, and I cannot wait to continue work on her piece (a beautiful meditation on AIDS and dying with dignity, inspired by Studs Terkel's Will the Circle Be Unbroken?). Hopefully coming soon to a fringe festival near you...

And how am I? I'm a bit amazed by it all. It has been so beautiful this week to see the individual projects, to be allowed into the worlds of colleagues and friends. Next week, no doubt, the floodgates will burst and all this wonder and sorrow and joy will find a language in tears, but at the moment, it's all wide-open eyes, wide-open arms, wide-open heart.